Mastering 'Metrics: The Path from Cause to Effect

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Finance is provided by PayPal Credit (a trading name of PayPal UK Ltd, Whittaker House, Whittaker Avenue, Richmond-Upon-Thames, Surrey, United Kingdom, TW9 1EH). I would be hard pressed to name another econometrics book that can be read for enjoyment yet provides useful quantitative insights. Another example relates to health insurance - at first glance, those with insurance seem healthier than those that don’t have it.

There is definitely an art to econometrics, but clouding econometrics in mysticism does more to protect the reputation of the teacher than it does to advance the student's learning. Although instrumental variable regression was invented as a solution to the problem of estimating supply and demand curves, our take on instrumental variables corresponds to the way instrumental variable regression is most often used now: as a solution to the problem of selection bias. They stress the importance of carefully thinking about test structure and ferreting out relationships between variables that are not obvious. Or have you wondered why we have to measure weird things (data on quarter of births) to understand the impact of education.The authors discuss regression unconventionally by showing how to get to the point where the key economic phrase ceteris paribus (other things being equal) can be applied. It follows and complements a recent Journal of Econometrics special issue also in honor of William A. Read more about the condition New: A new, unread, unused book in perfect condition with no missing or damaged pages. Modern econometrics is more than just a set of statistical tools--causal inference in the social sciences requires a careful, inquisitive mindset.

The positives of this book are instantly revealed to those who are working on this topic, so for them I am not going to comment much.A new book by Joshua Angrist and Jörn Steffen Pischke shows how the five core econometric tools -randomised trials, regression, instrumental variables, regression discontinuity designs and differences-in-differences - accomplish this. But where it really stands out is making it personable, drawing you into the book and helping you engage in a learning process that is quite steep. Such questions are easily understood, and the answers to them have real consequences for real people, including, in many cases, for our students.

This book will motivate beginning students to understand econometrics, with an appreciation of its strengths and limits. Our views are necessarily colored by the areas of applied microeconomics in which we are active, but we look over the fence at other areas as well.However, my expectations from this book were more - especially since I like the papers written by Angrist etc. Mastering 'Metrics is an engaging, fun, and highly accessible guide to the paradigm of causal inference. The problem is that neither sees the other as particularly useful or intelligent and efforts at communication inevitably betray this bias. This showed that people receiving more healthcare were not significantly more healthy - which seemed a disappointing result. The winds of change have blown most strongly in applied microeconomics, but econometrics has been left far behind.